


What's up with that Sims guy?

by schrijverr



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Married Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, POV Outsider, Post-Canon, Teacher Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, University, but i can dream, i know it wont happen, let me have this oka, let them be happy jonny pls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28108914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schrijverr/pseuds/schrijverr
Summary: After the Apocalypse Jon becomes an uni teacher, three students take in interest in what’s up with this weird new professor.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist - background
Comments: 38
Kudos: 347





	What's up with that Sims guy?

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find this work on my tumblr, which is @schrijverr as well. Hope you pop in and say hi, cause I'd love to talk to y'all!

Time and space moves differently around the Fears, something that could be confusing and strange, but also pretty handy as Jon and Martin had discovered during the Apocalypse. It meant that when they’d turned the world back to normal, banishing the Fears far away, no one had even noticed it had happened.

With Elias, uhm Jonah, gone their ties to the Institute had lessened. However, Jon was still depended on statements, but Martin had decided that being away from it all would be better for him, so Jon was now working part time, while Martin kept an eye on the place.

Which is how Jon had ended up as a professor at a university. He was filling in, because the current professor had gotten pregnant and they hadn’t been able to find someone more suitable than Jon to replace her temporarily. 

Jon knew he didn’t have the credentials necessary, but he Knew everything with the help of the Beholding, so he hoped that would be enough to get him through the year.

So here he was, standing in front of a big hall that was slowly filling up with students, who were eyeing him with a mix of curiosity, confusion and uneasiness. 

Once everyone had settled down he took a deep breath and started: “Hello everyone, I’m Jonathan Sims and I’m replacing your previous professor until she returns from her maternity leave. I have an oversight of what you all need to know and do this semester, so lets get started with that right away.”

~

Jane looked down at their new professor and shifted in her seat uneasily. He was strange, or at least had a strange aura surrounding him. Jane wasn’t once for judging on appearances, but it was hard not to wonder what the Hell had let a man such at him to this.

He was short, sure, but he wasn’t small and he had a big presence to make up for it. His black hair was streaked with gray, but he had a youthful face that didn’t quite match up, although the tiredness that hung around him seemed old. 

Beside that he was also littered with scars. It was hard not to notice the white circles that contrasted with his dark skin, it could be acne scars if they hadn’t been on his exposed forearms as well and so perfectly round. And those weren’t even his only scars, the entire palm on his right had was covered with a burn mark and the open buttons on the top of his shirt exposed a white thin scar across his throat.

So, yeah, strange.

He started to introduce himself and his voice was posh and low, but overall pleasant to listen to, she supposed. This didn’t stop her from exchanging a small look with Jesse, her best friend. Jesse raised her brows at her and the message was received, they were so going to talk about this later.

Later came as soon as they were out the door. Jesse leaned over and said: “Tell me I wasn’t the only one who got a weird vibe from that guy.”

Jane laughed and shook her head and answered: “You weren’t, I mean, this who building is filled with stuffy academics and suddenly this random dude walks in with the scars of a thug? That’s weird.”

Jesse nodded and asked: “What do you think happened to him?”

“I don’t know.” Jane shrugged, “But it seems pretty rude to just ask.”

Jesse sighed, then perked up with a realization: “We could plant a seed in Sams head.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” Jane said, mischief bubbling up inside her eyes. They had known Sam since their first year and were pretty close with the guy. Sam was also known for not being the most delicate or observant and unafraid to ask personal questions. If he was curious, he would ask.

“I would.” Jesse grinned back, she tugged her along through the crowd with an: “Come on!”

They found Sam easy enough and Jesse plopped down next to him and started: “Hey, Sam. What did you think of our new professor?”

Sam shrugged and scratched his forehead as he said: “Dressed like every other pretentious asshole in here, posh accent. But seemed to know his stuff. Normal teacher if you ask me. Why?”

Jesse inflated: “Come on. Don’t tell me you haven’t even noticed!”

“Noticed what?” Sam asked with a frown.

“The scars.” Jane said.

“Oh, were they scars.” Sam said, “I thought he had weird freckles.”

“Weird fr-” Jesse began before cutting herself off and asking: “Aren’t you curious why they’re there? I’ve never seen scars like that.”

“And the burnt hand and the scar on his neck.” Jane continued, “Those don’t appear randomly.”

Both looked at her now, heads to the side in confusion. Jane said: “Oh, didn’t see those?”

Jesse and Sam shook their heads. “Well,” Jane explained, “He has this burn on his hand like he gripped a hot burning coal or something and this line here,” she drew on her neck with her finger to signal where it was, “like someone tried to slit his throat. Makes me wonder what he did before this job.”

The three of them fell silent. Lost in thought to what could’ve happened to their new mysterious professor before all of this.

~

The next lesson didn’t clear anything up in the slightest. While they were discussing the 17th century literature circles Sam had raised his hand signaling he had a question. Jane and Jesse, who had decided to sit behind him tensed up. He got called on and asked: “Dr. Sims, what did you do before this?”

Dr. Sims frowned and pushed up his glasses, before saying: “You don’t have to call me doctor, it wouldn’t be deserved. Just Sims is fine, or Mr. Sims if that feels better. And I’m the A- an archivist.”

“Am?” Sam blurted out.

Sims laughed humorlessly and said: “Yeah, part time now.”

Then he went back to the lesson and didn’t acknowledge any more questions about his life. Jane didn’t know how he did it, but he seemed to just know which people had questions about the lesson and which about him. 

She walked out the hall with Sam and Jesse, who said: “That wasn’t insightful at all.”

Jane agreed: “Yeah, in what danger would an archivist be that leaves that kind of scarring?”

Sam shrugged and pulled out his phone as he said: “I can Google it.” the he muttered more to himself: “What kind of danger experiences an archivist, cool yeah.”

Jesse strained her neck to look on his screen and asked: ‘Well, what does it say?”

“Nothing much actually. Just a bunch of online archives and stuff.” Sam said.

Jane had a bit of a light bulb moment and suggested: “What if you type in Jonathan Sims?”

“Jonathan?” Jesse asked.

Jane shrugged and said: “It’s how he introduced himself during the first lecture.”

Sam typed in the name and his eyebrows crept further up to his hairline as he read the results of his search. Jesse couldn’t take it anymore and ripped the phone out of his hand, quickly scanning the page and gasping. Jane was now also curious and asked: “Well, tell me.”

She showed her the screen and Jane read the headlines. ‘Explosion at the Wax Museum, two survivors.’ The small excerpt reads: Last night there was an explosion at the wax museum, cause is still unknown, but suspected attack. Two survivors were found on the scene. Basira Hussain and Jonathan Sims, the latter of which is in a coma… 

Underneath that is another headline. ‘Attack at the Magnus Institute unearths body of former archivist Gertrude Robinson’ with a picture of a big fire brigade, some police and an ambulance under it, she can vaguely make out Sims getting loaded into the back of one of them.

And lastly a small report into the murder of Gertrude Robinson, listing Jonathan Sims as one of the suspects along with one about an older guy, who was apparently found dead in Sims office.  
Jane leaned back and whispered: “What the actual fuck.”

After that the rumors spread over the campus and by the time the next lecture rolled around the whole room was buzzing with nervous energy. Sims took one look around the room and sighed: “You are probably not going to let this go in favor of learning something that will actually be useful. Correct?”

A murmur went through the crowd, they had realized that the rumors had most likely reached Sims, but they hadn’t realized he’d be so straightforward about it.

“Okay.” Sims said, “I am willing to sacrifice ten minutes of my lecture for inquiries, but I will not promise to answer.”

Then he waited. Sam was the first to raise his hand and when called upon he asked: “How did you get the scars?”

Sims thought about it, the class thought he was thinking about how to bring it delicately and thoughtful, but inside Jons mind he heard Martin laugh at him and tell him he was an idiot after Jon had told someone the round scars had come from tripping. In hindsight it hadn’t been a good excuse, so Jon decided that vague was probably the safest way to go and said: “A workplace incident.”

Without raising his hand this time Sam asked: “Did it happen during the attack on your workplace? Why would anyone even attack archives?”

“The Archives are a small place in a big organization.” Jon began to explain, ignoring the fact that the Archives had been the target, “And in the end it turned out to be an aggressive infestation, just an accident.”

“Why your institute then?” Sam asked.

“Depends on if you believe in the paranormal, but you have to excuse me, Mr. Jacobs. It seems you are not the only one with questions.” Sims replied, then he turned to the other side and said: “Yes, Ms. Hendrickson?”

“Did you murder anyone?” she asked, clapping her hand over her mouth afterwards in shame of the question that she had blurted out.

Sims didn’t react to the harsh and accusatory question, just said: “If I murdered anyone, I wouldn’t be here, but in prison, don’t you agree?” then he smiled, but somehow Jane didn’t feel comforted by it.

Jesse spoke up, causing Jane to duck into herself in the hope that she wouldn’t be noticed in her seat next to Jesse. She asked: “Then who murdered them?”

Sims huffed a breath, blowing a strand of hair out of his face in the process and answered: “That would’ve been my former boss, I have to say I’m happy to see him gone and his replacement is more than capable.” he looked at the clock and clapped his hands, making more than a few people flinch. Then he stated: “That’s enough questions, time’s up. Lets get back to the symbolism in poetry during the Renaissance.”

And so life continued with Sims as their professor. There was still something uneasy about him, like he was just a sliver off in a way you couldn’t pinpoint, but felt in your bones. 

But he was actually quite nice. Which was weird in itself, since he could be pretty prickly and snappy if he found your reasoning or answer particularly stupid or ignorant and he was generally grumpy, but that changed completely if you actually had a problem and needed help. He would listen and then explain with the things you could understand, it was as if he could look at you and know what you needed to understand. That was also strange, but it was nice to have someone explain so correctly.

He was also a walking encyclopedia. He had fun fact about everything and when they said everything they meant everything. When he noticed Mary had died her hair he said: “I like your hair, did you know hair dye contains over 5.000 chemicals.” 

Then when Jamie asked what kind of tea he was drinking he answered: “Lady Grey, it was created by Twinings in the early 1990s to appeal to the Nordic market, which found Earl Grey too strong.”

While discussing Oscar Wilde he commented: “Funny how important this guy is, since he has only published one novel in his life.” 

When Kyra stumbled in late telling him the taxi had broken, he replied with: “Well cars have about 30.000 parts, so it isn’t far fetched that something broke.” 

The funniest part about it was that it just happened to slip out it seemed. He was also just as surprised as them when something like that tumbled out of his mouth and he always covered it up with a small cough, before ignoring it had happened and moving on with his lesson. 

It had become a bit of a game among students to make him say a fun fact. Sims had caught on to it, but he didn’t seem to mind all that much, his lips only tightening the littlest amount and his eyes tiring slightly.

So all in all, after two moths of lessons they felt like they knew the guy. He was nice in a grumpy way, could tear you apart verbally if he wanted to, had a lot of facts and worked part time as an archivist, which was apparently a pretty dangerous job.

Jane, Jesse and Sam had become pretty close to him, often staying after class to ask a few questions about the subject, help clean up, try to pry into his private life. The last thing never seemed to work, but it was fun to try and Sims had never let on that he minded it. He even seemed to enjoy their little chats.

Then one time after class, he suddenly looked up, frowned and stalked out of the hall. Quickly sharing glances the three followed after him, curious what had gotten his attention so suddenly.

They walked through a bunch of the main halls, then through a few quiet corridors until they were much further than hearing range, making them slightly uncomfortable. There was a kid, first year probably, barely an adult still very much baby faced, crying on the floor, knees drawn tight to his chest.

Cautiously Sims approached him and gently lowered himself to the ground. The kid looked up at him with a startled face, but Sims shushed him and gently asked: “What’s wrong?”

There was something off about the words, something compelling. The kid starts to speak, he had a slightly northern accent: “It’s all so different here with the big buildings and large crowds with loads of people everywhere, still I’m all by myself. No one want to talk to the dumbass from north, who has trouble with the tubes, you know.” he sniffled a sad chuckle, “And everything is just so overwhelming and I have no one to guide me or to talk to and I hate it. Then I saw everyone just talking about a party and I know it’s dumb, but I heard them say they were going to invite everyone and someone asked even me, but then they laughed and said of course not and I just couldn’t anymore, so I went here and I cried.”

It seemed he was finished and went back to small sniffles and silent tears. Sims gently put a hand on the kids knee and said: “Did that help?”

“Yeah,” the kid looked at him, “bit cathartic, honestly. Sorry for the trouble.”

“Oh, it’s no problem, Edward.” Sims said.

The kid didn’t seem to realize it, but the three silent watchers noticed the kid had never mentioned his name. 

Sims went on: “If you like, you can come over to my lecture hall. There are a few older years there, nice people, who I’m sure will want to help you. And a cup of tea.”

Edward rubbed his eyes and said: “They wouldn’t want to talk to me, I’m a loser and I don’t want the to think I’m even more one by telling them what happened.”

“I’m sure you won’t have. They’ve been where you are.” Sims responded, there was a bit of an edge to his voice and they realized he knew they were there and he was right. Jesse had been too brash, Jane too shy and Sam too blunt, it’s what had made them flock together. It was much better now, but they all remembered those awful first weeks. Without saying a word they hurried back to Sims hall.

When he came back they were making tea and lounging around. Jesse greeted him: “Hey, Sims. Where were you suddenly off to?”

Jane pushed her slightly and said: “Don’t pry.” then she turned back, “Want a cuppa, we just put on the kettle?”

Sims smiled and said: “I’d like that, could you make one for my friend, Edward here, as well. I had forgotten I was going to meet him, he’s curious about the Minor course and I thought maybe you could tell him a bit about it. If it isn’t any trouble, of course.”

“Of course not.” Jane smiled, then gestured to a chair: “Here, come sit with us.”

Edward did and later left feeling much better with a few new friends.

Friends, who were beginning to be suspicious about their teacher. They had a lengthy discussion about his knowing stuff and his spooky vibe. But no certain conclusion could be made and they decided that the mission for this year was finding out at least one personal fact about their teacher to prove he was at least somewhat normal. 

They didn’t have to wait long. Their classes had been thrown around due to an unfortunate miscommunication. So two classes were switched, causing Sims to teach on Wednesday instead of Thursday for just one week. He looked a bit pale that day, but nothing out of the ordinary. It was the season, so no one spared it a second thought. Until a larger man came through the door after a gentle knock. 

He was tall, about 6ft2, and chubby with a crème sweater and jeans. His face was freckled and he wore a gentle smile like it was second nature. His hair was curly and looked very soft, he in his entirety looked soft, you know, like the kind of person you know gives good hugs the moment you see them.

Sims was the only one who didn’t seem startled by his knock, just looked at the man and frowned as he said: “Martin, what are you doing here?”

“Sorry, sorry, Jon.” the man, Martin, said apologetically, “I know you said not to come and such, but I saw you had forgotten your statement and I know how you can get without them, so I thought I’d bring them to you.”

“I was going to read it tomorrow.” Sims said, “It can wait for one day. It’s not like it used to be.”

“Yeah, I know that as well, but we agreed that a rhythm would be good for you and your body to get used to.” Martin replied, holding out a folder.

Sims grabbed the folder and sighed: “You’re probably right, annoying as that may be, but couldn’t it wait till after I was done?”

“No, I’m meeting Daisy to discuss the proper storage of a Hunt artifact and you know how Daisy can be.” he answered.

“Yeah, I know.” Sims chuckled, absentmindedly touching the scar on his neck.

“Besides, I wanted to see you.” Martin said, then he brushed a lock of hair, that had freed itself from Sims’ messy bun, behind Sims ear and pecked him on the cheek. Turning to leave immediately after calling out over his shoulder: “Read it, Jon! And don’t forget to pick up milk on the way back if you want any good tea.”

Martin opened the door and Sims smiled, like a real and soft and dopey smile, as he touched his cheek and yelled back: “I will, say hi to Daisy from me.”

Then Martin was gone and the silence that had fallen over the hall with Martins entrance was broken. Multiple people called out questions and it was a bit of a chaos. It took a few minutes to get everyone settled down again and Sims returned to his lecture as if nothing happened. Sam called out from the second row: “Really, Sims? Nothing?”

Sims shoulders sagged, he had clearly hoped he could get away with it and was sad that it hadn’t worked. He said: “Mr. Jacobs, although I appreciate your interest in my personal life, I hope that I don’t have to explain how normal it is for my husband to come bring me something I forgot at home.”

The hall exploded again, but Sims ignored it all again telling them there were more important things to talk about, for example the lecture, which will be on the exam.

For Jane, Jesse and Sam it was enough. Their teacher was weird and off, but he was nice enough and if someone as soft looking as the Martin figure was willing to marry him, then he was good enough in their opinion and not worth the detective work.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written at the start of season 5 and it has been sitting in my docs for a while, but I had to post it in an attempt to manifest a good ending before the final part of season 5 airs
> 
> (if you're wondering, yes Edward is semi-based on Ed from RQG)
> 
> Comments are the best, Kudos are amazing. Thank you so much for leaving any if you did.


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